his professing people shall be cast into outer darkness?

5. After infants have been baptized, and after young persons have been admitted to the holy communion, the true pastor, instead of taking it for granted, that they are become unfeigned christians by partaking of these ordinances, examines them with diligence from time to time, and, from an attentive observation of their conduct, forms a judgment of their faith. If, after the strictest scrutiny, he discovers some among them, who hold the form, without experiencing the power of godliness, he renews his work with encreasing ardour. The most painful part of his duty is still before him, when he attempts to convert those sinners, who are baptized, and those infidels, who are communicants: since before he can lead them to that which worketh by love, as St. Paul was accustomed to lead unprejudiced heathens, he must first unmask them with a holy severity, as the blessed Jesus was accustomed to unmask the pharisees of his day.

6. If unregenerate christians are heathens by their worldly disposition; if they are pharisees by their presumption, and confirmed in their pharisaism by the fallacious opinions they indulge of their prerogatives under the Gospel....it follows, that every modern pastor is called to a performance of the twofold duty above described. And if this be the case, how unreasonable is it to imagine, that the ministers of our own time have a much less difficult task before them than those, who were formerly commissioned to publish the Gospel!

7. All pastors have an important task assigned them, and, till this is performed, they are required to labour without fainting. Observe in what this task consists...." He that descended from Heaven," saith St. Paul, " gave some Apostles; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the

body of Christ: Till we all come," both pastors and flocks, "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." When every christian has attained to this exalted state, the ministers of the Gospel may then assert their work to be complete, and need imitate no longer the diligence of St. Paul. But while we are surrounded with baptized swearers, sabbath-breakers, slanderers, gamesters, drunkards, gluttons, debauchées, blasphemers, and hypocrites, who are using every effort to render christianity despicable before infidels, and execrable in the eyes of philosophers at such a time it cannot be reasonably imagined that any individual labourer is permitted to stand idle in the spiritual vineyard. And yet, in this very time of universal degeneracy, there are not wanting many among us, who inconsiderately cry out; St. Paul, without doubt, had "reason to labour with unremitting assiduity for the "conversion of idolatrous heathens; but we are "converted already, and see no necessity for that "burning zeal, and those strenuous efforts among "our modern teachers, which were formerly com"mendable in that Apostle."

8. If it be objected, that christians are here represented in a more deplorable point of view than candour or observation can warrant; we make our appeal to those proclamations, which have been made with a view to suppress the single sin of profaning the name of God, by impious oaths and horrible imprecations. These must undoubtedly be considered as public testimonies of public guilt. In such proclamations every christian government, whether catholic or protestant, equally complain, that all the civil laws, by which they have endeavoured to enforce the Law of God, have proved insufficient to prevent the overflowings of a crime, as insipid as it is dis graceful. In vain have new penalties and punishments been decreed; in vain are they constantly held forth from the pulpits of preachers and the

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thrones of Kings: this despicable vice still reigns undisturbed among us, insulting over the broken laws of earth and Heaven. Now if it has hitherto been found impossible to prevent the commission of a sin, which has neither pleasure nor profit to plead in its favour, what can we expect of all those thou sand vices, which allure with promise sof both ? are not dissimulation and perjury, injustice and covetousness, lasciviousness and luxury, apparent among the members of every church? Do not rapine, revenge and murder, defile every part of Christendom, in spite of prisons, banishment and death? It is a truth too notorious to be controverted, that every crime, with which human nature has ever been polluted, is still continually practised in the most enlightened parts of the world.

We might here mention, if it were necessary, the contempt in which marriage is held, the instability of that holy estate, and the facility with which so sacred a bond is broken. We might go on to bewail the frequent commission of suicide in christian communities....But to speak of these with many other sins, which are encreasing around us to an alarming degree, would be only to echo back those sad complaints, which are every day breathed from the lips of the righteous. The above remarks may possibly appear uncharitable to some: but, if they are without foundation, how many unmeaning expressions do we find in our liturgy! what hypocrisy in our public confessions! what false humility in our prayers!

From all these observations, it is evident, that the most heathenish manners are common among christians so called, and that the most scandalous vices are prevalent, even in those countries, where reformed christianity has erected its standard. Let the impartial enquirer then declare, whether it be not peculiarly necessary to preach repentance among those, whose rebellion against God is accompanied with perfidiousness and hypocrisy ?

CHAP. VII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

1. WERE it even certain, that professing christians in general walk according to their holy vocation, would it be commendable in pastors to shew less concern for the salvation of Christ's apparent disciples, than was anciently discovered by St. Paul, for the conversion of persecuting heathens? Christians are our brethren. The church, our common mother, has nourished us with the same spiritual milk, and calls us to a participation of the same heavenly inheritance. Christians are no more strangers; and even those, who are bad citizens and unfaithful domestics, are nevertheless in some sense citizens of the same city with ourselves, and of the household of God. Hence, as we compose but one household, so whenever we are disposed to neglect any part of this family, we may apply to ourselves the following words of the Apostle : “If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Let ministers then, be placed in the happiest imaginable circumstances, and it will still become them to cry out, with the pious benevolence of St. Paul; " As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them, who are of the houshold of faith."

2. We may here pursue the idea, which Christ himself has given us, by comparing his church to a vineyard. If it be necessary to graft those stocks, which are naturally wild; is it less necessary to cultivate those, which have been already grafted? We see the husbandman bestowing most culture upon those vines, which produce the most excellent fruit. Let ministers attend to this general rule: nd since they only can be fruitful in the sacred vine

yard, who receive the word of God in faith, let them study to train up believers to the highest state of maturity. Thus the heavenly husbandman is represented, as purging every fruitful branch," that it may bring forth more fruit."

3. The word of God must be offered to sinners as a remedy suited to the disease of their souls: but to the faithful it must be administered as nourishing food. Hence, as the order of grace resembles that of nature, it is necessary, in a spiritual sense, to minister nutriment to the healthy in much greater quantities, than medicine to those, who are dis eased. Thus believers, who constantly hunger and thirst after greater degrees of grace, should more frequently receive the living word, that they may abound yet more and more in knowledge," till they are" filled with the fruits of righteousness."

4. We find the following expressions in the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans: "I am persuaded of you, my brethren that ye are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one another. Nevertheless I have written the more boldly unto you, as putting you in mind." And ". I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established." Now, if St. Paul could express so earnest a desire to instruct those christians, who were perfect strangers to him, and who were already so divinely enlightened; far from being imitators of this great Apostle, do we not forfeit all pretensions to charity, while we suffer those ignorant christians to perish for lack of knowledge, who are not only of our neighbourhood, but probably of our very parish?

5. Though St. Paul was assisted with miraculous endowments, yet how anxiously did he en-s deavour to fill up the twofold duties of a believer in Christ, and a minister of his Gospel. And shall we refuse to labour with equal earnestness, whose gifts so mean, and whose graces are so inconsider

are